


dog days are over

by Trojie



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Veterinary Clinic, the dog is a little bit injured but he's totally fine I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 07:30:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15068192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: Pete/Gerard, one works at an animal shelter and the other has a stray dog that needs help





	dog days are over

**Author's Note:**

> For no_tags Summer 2018
> 
> The title is c/o Florence + the Machine <3

Gerard looks up from the page he's inking for the fourth time in as many minutes, and frowns. He cocks his head, trying to listen, and then reaches out a hand to slap the off button on his stereo. 

That's … definitely a whimper, and not a human one, and not a 'Mikey's-watching-a-gory-movie' one either. It … sounds like it's outside his door?

Gerard tries not to open the door to the outside world too often. Leaves and spiders and those weird seedhead things come inside when he does. He supposes possibly he could work upstairs, move his desk somewhere with a bit more light? But he kind of likes maintaining the ambience of the basement studio, even if he's grown out of his weird teenage shut-in phase. He's pretty sure he's not going to pen the next Batman in a well-lit room with his brother playing MarioKart on the sofa. The creative aura would be all wrong.

The whimpering continues, and it tugs at Gerard's heartstrings more than a little, so he braces himself for the onslaught of spiders, and turns the key. And looks down.

No arachnids immediately manifest, but there's a _dog_ on the step. Like. Quite a big dog, too. Big and black with floppy ears and huge sad eyes and … oh shit. 

So, the reason for the whimpering is probably the extremely large bleeding scrape down the dog's flank. Gerard's not an experienced dog handler but the previous times in his life he's been in contact with a dog have not tended to involve blood. 

'Mikey!' Gerard yells. 'I need you to google animal shelters!'

The dog whimpers again. 

'Hey, boy,' says Gerard, crouching down and offering his hand, which the dog very gingerly sniffs. He might be imagining it but it seems like the poor thing flinches in pain. 'Hey. It's gonna be okay. Let's get you inside.'

Mikey comes down the stairs. 'What are you - whoa. That's a dog,' he says. 

Gerard is trying to work out how to get the dog indoors without putting it in more pain, or getting blood all over himself. 'It's hurt,' he says. 'Did you google shelters?'

'Oh, is that what you were yelling?' Mikey's already on his phone. 'There's one near here. Oh, hey, wait, lemme -'  
He rummages around in the linen closet next to the washing machine and hauls out one of their old car blankets from when they were kids. 'Let's see if we can get him on here and then like, pick him up?' he suggests. 'Like a stretcher.'

'Genius,' says Gerard, and stops trying to get his arms around non-contiguous, non-injured bits of dog. 'Help me get him in the car?'

They manage it without too much trouble, but the noises the poor thing makes as they try and get him up the stairs without bumping are pitiful, and Gerard feels a little sick and a lot worried. 'Hey, buddy,' he murmurs as they're trying to tuck the dog into the backseat. 'It's gonna be okay.'

He keeps saying that, but he's not sure what else he can say. 

The dog noses wetly at his hand, and then licks it. 

Mikey hops into the driver's side. 'I think you should probably ride back there with him,' he says. 'I don't think human seatbelts work for dogs.'

'So drive careful, motherfucker.'

'I will, but just in case?'

So Gerard climbs into the backseat with the dog -- and the dog climbs painfully into his lap. 

'Aw,' says Mikey, starting the engine. 'I think he likes you.'

***

By the time they make it to the shelter, Gerard thinks he might be wearing some moderate amount of blood, but the dog appears to be asleep. 

It doesn't remain asleep, and by the time they get inside the dog is crying, heavy in Gerard's arms, and Mikey's sort of trailing them with the blanket and saying 'be careful, Gee, don't drop him,' like a particularly ineffectual Greek chorus. 

So it's a relief when someone immediately comes out and says, 'oh, hey, put him down over here,' and there's a dog bed in a crate and someone taking the weight of the poor injured dog from Gerard and saying, just like he'd said, 'there y'go, hey boy, it's gonna be okay.'

Gerard looks up from the dog into a pair of wide brown eyes and an expression that's less comforting directed at him than it was at the dog. 'Let me guess, you just found him like that?'

'He was outside my back door,' says Gerard helplessly. 'I didn't know what to do.'

'That dog's been hit by a car,' says the shelter guy. 'Not yours?'

'Dude. You're welcome to come look at our fucking bodywork,' Mikey cuts in, folding his arms. The shelter guy looks up, glaring, and Mikey blinks. 'Oh. Hey Pete.'

'Mikey?'

'Gee's telling the truth, the dog got into our yard like that. Must have hauled himself off the road I guess.'

'Well,' says … Pete, Gerard supposes, given the combined evidence of Mikey and the name-tag he can now see. 'You did the right thing bringing him here.' He offers a hand to pull Gerard up to his feet, which Gerard takes. 

'Is he gonna be okay?' 

'The vet'll be in first thing tomorrow,' Pete says. 'I'll get him cleaned up and comfortable, he should be okay til then. It looks bad, but it's just a really big scrape, I promise.' He gently pulls, and Gerard realises they're still kind of holding hands. He hurriedly lets go.

'Good, that's - that's good.'

Mikey hustles Gerard out, for some reason, but not before Pete's arched an eyebrow at him and said, 'You should come back in a couple of days. Y'know. To see how he's doing.'

He winks.

'I will,' says Gerard, as if he regularly leaves the house or something.

Mikey's phone goes off four times between the door of the shelter and their car. When they get in the car, he checks it, and then sighs. 'I feel obligated to inform you, because I'm pretty sure you have no goddamn idea, that Pete was flirting with you.'

'I - okay,' says Gerard. 'I think he was just being nice, though.' Mikey sees flirting everywhere, in Gerard's experience. He's got such a one-track mind, honestly, it's a little embarrassing. 

Mikey shoves his phone under Gerard's nose. 

Gerard reads, and blinks. 'I'm .. pretty sure that's not anatomically possible.'

'What?' Mikey retracts the phone and glares at it. 'Oh, no, sorry, that was for me. Try this one.'

The phone comes back into Gerard's field of view.

_is that ur brother mway?_

_he's cute where you bin hiding him?_

_i like a man who doesnt mind being covred in labrador blood_

Gerard looks down at his shirt and groans. 'Oh my god, I look like the set of the Shining.'

'Some people are apparently into that,' says Mikey, and they peel out of the parking lot. 

***

The dog is all stitched up like a patchwork quilt and wearing an honest to god cone the next time Gerard sees it,but its tail wags so hard its back feet do a little tapdance on the floor of its cage when it realises he's here. 

Pete bends down to unlock the little door, and the dog muscles its way out past him and straight up to Gerard. 

'Hey boy,' says Gerard, not bothering to fight the way his knees buckle to bring him down to the floor. The dog paws its way into his lap, knocking him off his haunches into an actual sprawl over the linoleum. 'You're feeling better.'

'He's doing great,' says Pete. 'We shouldn't have any trouble finding him a new home.'

Gerard looks up. 'A new home?'

Pete laughs. 'Yeah, dude, he's up for adoption as soon as those stitches come out. This is a shelter, not a retirement home.'

'Oh. Oh, right, that makes sense.' The dog attempts to snuffle at Gerard's face and the cone gets in the way, and in the ensuing chaos of sorting out a way to get petted that's satisfactory for everyone involved, Gerard sort of loses track of what the next thing Pete says is, but when he looks up again there's this soft, fond expression on Pete's face. 

He must really like this dog. It's probably sad to see so many of them come and go. 

'Y'know,' says Pete, after the dog has to go back into his crate and Gerard has hoisted himself back up off the floor and half-heartedly sort of dusted himself down. 'It's nearly the end of my shift. You wanna go get a drink or something?'

'Oh, I c - I don't,' says Gerard, and Pete's face falls. 'But how do you feel about pizza?'

'I love pizza! Lemme tidy up and make sure everyone's got water and had their meds, and I'm all yours,' Pete says, flashing Gerard a dazzling grin. 

Gerard props himself up against the receptionist's desk and watches Pete run a mop over the floor and check every single dog, and texts Mikey.

_out for dinner tonight, c u later_

_arent you at the animal shelter_

_yeah why?_

_please tell me your out for dinner bc you made a move on pete_

_this is literally the second time iv ever talked to the guy calm your tits_

_and yet_

_its just pizza geez_

Mikey doesn't reply for a while, long enough for Pete to finish up and come over to pick up his coat. 'Ready to go?'

'Born ready,' says Gerard, feeling in his pocket for his car keys. 

He looks at his phone again.

_i put a new box of condoms in ur bedside table. ur welcome_

Gerard is going to kill his baby brother.

***

Gerard, full of pizza and with a pleasantly sore feeling in his chest and cheeks from literally laughing too hard for too long, walks Pete back to his door because he's a gentleman. 

Not that this was a date, Gerard reminds himself. He turned his phone off about two hours ago because Mikey's advice was starting to get even more worrying than usual. 

'So,' says Pete, turning around instead of getting his keys out. 'Your brother says -'

'Oh my god, whatever he said, ignore it,' says Gerard. 'Please. He's a holy terror.'

Pete tips his head a little sideways, the corner of his mouth quirking up like something's funny. He steps a little closer. Away from his door, into Gerard's space. One of his hands finds Gerard's hip. 'So I shouldn't … do this then?' he murmurs, and then presses his mouth very softly to Gerard's. 

Gerard can't help the noise he makes or the way his hands fly up to hold onto Pete's shoulders for dear life. 

'No,' says Gerard faintly when they break the kiss, breathing a little raggedly. 'Um. I guess occasionally he has good ideas.'

Pete grins, wicked all of a sudden. 'He does,' he says. 'But I think I'm gonna take it from here.'

***

The next morning, Gerard idly scrolls through the (increasingly anatomically improbable) texts from Mikey. Pete's warm and snuggly against him in the half-light coming in through the cracks in the curtains, and Gerard hasn't looked at nearly enough of his tattoos yet. Not in real light. 

He snorts at the last message, and shows it to Pete. 

_also: just adopt the frickn dog, g_

Pete kisses his shoulder. 'You should listen to your brother. I did, and look where it got me.'


End file.
